2023-09-19 18:54:33
People in need of care who live in a home in the old federal states receive controversial sleeping pills and sedatives more often than in the new federal states. “The risky long-term prescriptions are much more common in the West than in the East,” said the Federal Association of General Local Health Insurance Funds (AOK) and its Wido Scientific Institute on Tuesday in Berlin.
In the worst quarter of the cases evaluated, almost 10 percent of the residents were treated this way, in the best quarter not even 5 percent, according to an analysis of the billing data for the AOK’s 2023 care report. The average was 7.6 percent. 350,000 residents aged 60 and over were taken into account, around half of all inpatient care.
High values in Saarland and North Rhine-Westphalia
The information from the eleven regional local health insurance companies in 400 districts and independent cities showed that the long-term administration of the funds is common throughout Saarland as well as in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), “where 45 of the 53 districts and independent cities show noticeable results”. There had previously been repeated reports that those in need of care were being sedated with medication.
“Actually, people in need of care should be treated with the sleeping pills and sedatives tested for a maximum of four weeks,” said Antje Schwinger, head of the research department for nursing at Wido. Long-term use could lead to dependencies, increased risk of falls, feelings of anxiety, depression and aggression. “The evaluation of the prescription data confirms the findings of numerous studies that there is a serious supply problem here, which varies greatly from region to region.”
Thorsten Winter Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 3 Carlota Brandis, Sindelfingen Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 5 A comment from Dietrich Creutzburg, Berlin Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 83
Ten connections between care and health were systematically examined. In the 2021 reporting year, almost 4 percent of all dementia patients nationwide came from a nursing home to a clinic because of insufficient fluid intake. In the 20 most conspicuous districts and cities it was up to 12.5 percent. Most of these were in Bavaria, Lower Saxony, Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia, as can be seen from the new AOK online portal “Quality Atlas Care”.
There is good news about the hospitalizations of nursing home residents in the last 30 days of their lives, which are often viewed as unnecessary. Between 2017 and 2021 the value fell from 47 to 42 percent, although the corona effects are unclear. There was also a west-east divide here. In Saarland it was almost 50 percent in 2021, in Saxony only 36 percent.
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